Testing firewood by weight. Ash, Birch, Cottonwood, Russian Olive, Fir and Ponderosa pine.

Gentlemens welcome back to the shop today the witch of november come stealing early. We're going to test out some firewood. The best firewood is what you get free from the queen's own back 40.: six cords of the finest naughty fur lodgepole pine. Now any easterner worth of salt wouldn't give you the steam off his piss for a face cord of it.

But around here you got ta piss with the you got and the i got happens to be the queens speaking of freddie mercury plenty of fellas here, king shits, the turd island, will tell you what for and how to get there about firewood. I ain't that just a dude it's unquestionable, however, that hardwood is far girthier in the hand than softwood. Now what is the difference? The growth rings. Essentially, the hardwood is deciduous.

That means it loses its foliage, including tamarack, which is coniferous but loses its foliage. You know: there's some overlap there, but hey 3am, a mouth is a mouth see the growth rings on. That means it grew real fast, but it's real soft. So it's not nearly as dense, and here is the fur.

Now this guy is ash. A right unholy terror of a tree to split but gorgeous gorgeous. Once you get a burning, we got our birch here, nearly the minimum viable hardwood, but it comes with its own kindling. The bark is highly flammable and it peels right off great makes for great kindling a russian olive grows like a weed around here very mediterranean.

Despite the freezing hot, like temperatures in the winter. It's a very arid around here and this russian olive grows nice. It is stinky, it's got a top note of pipe tobacco. It's a very smelly wood to burn very smoldery, some fellas, don't like it, because it goops up the pipes but who, amongst us, hasn't had a chimney fire in the middle of the night.

This here is a big chunk of hash, we'll get rid of that one. I want everything to be roughly the same size, not the same size but the same mass so that we can compare apples to oranges. This here looks like cottonwood, it could be cottonwood or it could be aspen. It could be poplar the younger trees have that look to it.

I think it is cottonwood if you're red your kid's at the fantastic kids book dip netting with dad the cottonwood is what they use for smoking. Salmon makes a delicious smoked salmon two kilos, ish cottonwood aspen poplar, two kilos of fur d, marked speaking of which, when the gas prices go through the roof, that is, for our american buddies through the rough you're, going to see an uptick in axe and chainsaw injuries. You're going to want to hit your brokerage up for derivatives of axe, futures or some sort of axe-based thumb, cryptocurrency 2100 grams. I will shave a little bit off of there of ash hard as woodpecker lips that stuff good enough 4.4 pounds in human readable units of birch.

Just shy. Two thousand grams of russian olive oil give that pine, as the gong goes, we'll give that pine a fighting chance: 2.3 kilos, here's red hot sap in your eye, speaking of freddie mercury saturday, night you're, windy outside i got some back drafting hmm got a puppy, pile United nation style, cottonwood fur ash, poplar, pine and russian olive, and i get this wedding reception started with some tequila shooters and the chicken dance get the rest of these dancers on the floor. I think that lanky, shake of fur has an unfair advantage being shielded. Let's give her a poke and a prod see if we can't get it, i grant you the resinous coniferous trees, that is fur pine, have a distinct advantage, but for entertainment and that they spit some sparking they got little pockets of sap would explode and pop and Crack and so forth, i think what you're hearing there is the fur to my ear.
That sounds like the fur and not the pine. The hardwoods are quite a bit calmer, um whew, the pine is doing far better than expected might be the shape of a wah big chungus get out of here. Warming up the flies now coming out of hibernation. That birch is looking a little worse for the wearing and that cottonwood aspen poplar.

That's three carters of an inch proud of the hole and uh flames licking out the end of her. I think the russian olive is the favorite at this point. It might be part and parcel of its positioning, however, juxtaposed with the cottonwood in the far corner, a chuck pine is messing with my mojo. You give her a little poke there.

We got a couple already didn't: make the full pull the cottonwood slash, aspen, still burning off volatiles the fur, nothing but carbon matrix left. There is some sublimation there that is a solid carbon going to gas. You can see back there right in the middle of the screen and the ash surprisingly completely gone same thing, just the carbon matrix sublimating. We still have some off gassing from the birch and the pine just slaying it.

If i didn't see it with my known two eyes that ponderosa pine, i think i called that lodgepole before it's ponderosa it. It's blowing my mind. Just about everything's gone nice coals, the russian olive still off, gassing a little bit, but that might be coming from the pine that cottonwood still off gassing a little bit the fur just gonzo. I never would have expected this result at all by eye.

The pine comet out, on top it was still the last to flame out all of those volatile, still off gassing. Now what we'll do is we'll just check. It goes to show that measuring wood by face cord, that is by volume, doesn't give you a good indication of the heat quality, because it really depends on the mass of the wood and because the soft woods are much less dense. It takes a lot more volume to get the same mass, but ultimately, carbohydrate foam is carbohydrate foam, whether it's more denser less dense seems like you're, going to get the same amount out of the wood if you measure it by weight and, of course, water content.

We can all agree that there's something viscerally enjoyable about sitting front the fire. Now this was not the result. I was expecting and i'm going to catch some heat, i'm sure, because a hardwood fire is so much nicer than a spitzen sparks and soft wood fire. We got to redo this test.
I think we need to have the exact same shape and we also what we'll do is we'll make say little cubes and we'll have the same shape and the same mass, but not the same volume see where that takes us. Thanks for watching also out of this, the shape of the split is really really important for the length of burn if you're looking for heat. Of course, you just pack it right full of kindling and set your hacienda on fire. But if you're looking for a nice long burning fire, it's clear that the bigger the chungus.


By AvvE

10 thoughts on “Best firewood?”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Gardner says:

    When you say "fir" I think you need to clarify that you mean the good kind — pseudotsuga menziesii v. glauca, AKA doo-glass fir — and not the crappy silver/grand crap. Out here in the hinterland of Ontariariario "fir" means the crappy Abies sp. stuff and noone's heard of doug fir.

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Nate says:

    I should send you a twig or two of Texas mesquite and let you watch in wide eyed amaz-met of it's ability to produce heat with minimal mass loss. Even the trees absorb the Texas sun differently than those kinukistan trees.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Chad Davis says:

    I rely on wood for heat, that said, I burn what I have. If it's dead/down or in the way I use it.

    As for longevity burning all night and still good coals in the morning hard wood is by far the winner

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars CRISPR says:

    Personally I always smoke my salmon on rough cedar planks. Gonna try your suggestion. First time I ever saw a wood burning beauty contest. Cheers from the Cascade mountains!

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars JonnyRox says:

    I lived right on the edge of the Sitgreaves National Forest, the largest stand of Ponderosa Pine there in the world , and heated my house and barns with it for 28yrs ( northeastern Arizona). Used Juniper kindling to lay a bed of coals, then toss 2 Pine rounds 8-10 inches round and never had to worry about it til morning…gotta sweep the chimney on the regular, but hey!

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars White Elemant says:

    Well my empirical evidence is clear: when heating the sauna, a single stovefull of birch and it's done, with pine you need one and a half (well, about anyway). And that is both being of equal size chunks and equally dry.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Maui says:

    Another consideration (at least for guys with small pecke.. er, stoves, yeah stoves) is the amount of ash remaining. I have a small wood stove insert, sorry girls, that will fill up with ash after three days of burning using the all mighty white oak. Not so with fir. I need to stop burning with oak, cool the stove (and the abode) and clean-out the oak ash fairly often. The oak is also more difficult to light. Since the nominal unit of firewood is volume and the stove volume limits how much you can cram in to heat through the night, I think a volume based comparo may be more pertinent.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Bob Dobolina says:

    I hope you and your baby doll are banging out heaps of prototypes so that the original blueprint is not lost.
    You are definitely a rare un.
    I grin ear to ear every video ya kewl fruitcake.
    Hahaha

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mike Seigel says:

    When I was a teen, we burned wood for heat. Dad used to call the power company and find where they were trimming under the lines. My experience is that black locust is harder than oak. We always burned hardwoods as pine left creosote and that’s what causes chimney fires.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Joshua Stankiewicz says:

    Try eucalyptus for one of those burns.

    2 years ago I had a cord of that, 3 logs the size of those on the video would burn for about an hour and project heat out of the fireplace about 30’.

    7 logs would keep my (at the time) 1800 sqft condo at 82° all night.

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